Succession to Muhammad
Conversely, Twelver Shia Muslims believe that Muhammad had explicitly designated Ali as his heir, notably during the Event of Ghadir Khumm, following the revelation of verse 5:67 in the Quran.
According to Twelver Shia doctrine, the subsequent rulers after Muhammad are considered illegitimate, with Ali and his lineage of eleven divinely-appointed Twelve Imams being the rightful successors.
[4] The earliest surviving written sira (biography of Muhammad) is Sirat Rasul Allah (Life of God's Messenger) by Ibn Ishaq (d. 761 or 767 CE).
[17] The leading candidate was possibly Sa'd ibn Ubada,[18] a companion of Muhammad and a chief of the Banu Khazraj, the majority tribe of the Ansar.
[44] In Shia sources, the death (and miscarriage) of the young Fatima are attributed to an attack on her house to subdue Ali at the order of Abu Bakr.
[50] Umar later criticized the Saqifa affair, "The oath of allegiance for Abu Bakr was a falta [i.e., a precipitate and ill-considered deal],[53] but God averted the evil of it.
[67] The tie breaker vote belonged to Abd al-Rahman, Othman's brother-in-law, and it has been suggested that the makeup and configuration of this committee left a small possibility for the nomination of Ali.
"[76] In the absence of any serious opposition and urged particularly by the Ansar and the Iraqi delegations, Ali eventually accepted the first pledges of allegiance in the Prophet's Mosque in Medina.
In 680, after surrounding them in Karbala and cutting off their access to water for multiple days, Yazid's forces slaughtered Husayn, alongside his family and his small group of supporters.
[98] The Quran, as the central religious text of Islam, does not explicitly identify a successor to Muhammad,[99] though it grants key privileges to the families of the past prophets.
The scripture describes how the past prophets prayed for (and were granted) the divine favor to be succeeded by their close kin in kingship, in rule, in wisdom, in imamate, etc.
[123] Insofar as the Quran reflects the views of Muhammad, Madelung concludes, he could have not seen his succession differently from the earlier prophets or considered Abu Bakr as his natural successor.
[139] Burton comments that this banquet "won for [Muhammad] a proselyte worth a thousand sabers in the person of Ali, son of Abu Talib.
"[143] Hadith of position is a biblical analogy in favor of Ali that appears in canonical Sunni and Shia sources, including Sahih al-Bukhari and Kitab al-kafi.
[149] Despite its Shia coloring, the Hadith of Position nevertheless remains prominent in Sunni sources as one of the most important pieces of evidence supporting the finality of Muhammad in the chain of prophets.
[168] As reported in Musnad Ibn Hanbal, Muhammad's companion Umar congratulated Ali after the sermon and told him, "You have now become mawla of every faithful man and woman.
"[160][158][169] The historicity of the Ghadir Khumm is rarely disputed within the Muslim community,[158][170][171] as its recorded tradition is "among the most extensively acknowledged and substantiated" in classical Islamic sources, even as the statements made at the event remain open to interpretation.
The Sunni Ibn Kathir (d. 774/1373) suggests that the Ghadir Khumm sermon was simply intended as a public declaration of Muhammad's love and esteem for Ali in response to criticism of some soldiers.
[158] Accepting this explanation as such, that Muhammad equated Ali with himself in an extraordinary announcement at the Ghadir Khumm still provides a strong basis for the Shia claims, suggests Jafri.
According to Walker, too ill to lead the prayers himself, Muhammad instructed Abu Bakr to take his place, ignoring concerns that he was too emotionally delicate for the role.
[181] Jafri finds the related traditions often contradictory,[54] many of which are attributed by Ibn Sa'd (d. 230/845) to Abu Bakr's daughter Aisha,[182] whose rivalry and dislike for Ali and Fatima are well-documented.
[187] Shia authors similarly dispute the authenticity of these reports, adding that Muhammad had earlier instructed his companions, including Abu Bakr and Umar, to leave Medina on a military campaign against the Byzantines under Usama ibn Zayd.
[189] Lecomte writes that Muhammad respected Abu Bakr but considers the prayer story inconclusive because it does not formally relate to the political leadership of the community.
[32] Walker notes that this and similar traditions suggest friendship and trust but are hardly related to succession because Muhammad regularly delegated this task and other positions of authority to others.
[211] Though it is believed that Ali considered himself as the rightful successor of Muhammad,[212] he is said to have turned down proposals to forcefully pursue his claims to the caliphate after the appointment of Abu Bakr, for the sake of preserving the unity of Islam in a critical time.
[218] Saluted as Asadullah (literally, "the lion of God"), Ali has been viewed as the most able warrior in Muhammad's army and the two were the only Muslim men who represented Islam against a Christian delegation from Najran.
[220] When, following the revelation of the surah at-Tawbah, Abu Bakr was sent to Mecca to give an ultimatum to disbelievers, there is strong evidence that Muhammad might have sent out Ali to take over this responsibility.
[221] In Shia theology, while direct revelation ended with Muhammad's death, Ali remained the righteous guide towards God, similar to the successors of the past prophets in the Quran.
[228] After Hasan's death, his brother, Husayn, and nine of his descendants are regarded as Imams, the last of whom, Mahdi, went into occultation in 260 AH (874 CE), compelled by the hostility of his enemies.
[230] Zayd, a half-brother of Muhammad al-Baqir, also asserted a claim to imamate on the basis that the title can belong to any descendant of Hasan or Husayn who is learned, pious, and revolts against the tyrants of his time.
